


Feather Stitches

by RogueWolf



Series: Risk Scores and Development [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Caretaking, Fluff, Honestly it's nothing but fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:31:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6482197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueWolf/pseuds/RogueWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Qrow gets hurt in an accident one day, his first thought isn't to go to a hospital. James was anticipating a quiet night at home, he certainly wasn't expecting a bruised and bloody Qrow to appear at his doorstep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feather Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place before [Coffee and Tea and Late Night Surprises](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6341461), and James and Qrow are just friends and coworkers.

The doorbell chimed through the house, its cheery “ding dong” repeating itself twice before falling silent. James looked down at his watch and frowned; it was almost 7:30pm – too early for Penny to be back home from her play rehearsal and he hadn’t been expecting company.

The doorbell rang again and James pushed himself to his feet with an annoyed sigh. Someone probably had mixed his house up with his neighbor’s. It wasn’t that uncommon, he could think of at least four other times it’d happened. He’d correct them, send them on their way, and make sure the number on his mailbox was lined in glow-in-the-dark paint. Maybe his neighbor’s too, though they didn’t need to know about it.

 _Ding dong_. James grit his teeth and glared at the front door. Just because whomever was out there didn’t have any manners, didn’t mean James had to act uncivilized too. And throwing the person off his property because they rang his doorbell one too many times was definitely uncivilized.

The doorbell was just starting up its chime for the fifth time when James yanked open the front door and Qrow Branwen stumbled inside.

“Qrow?” James asked, stunned.

Qrow smiled and gave him a sloppy salute. “Hey general, thanks for opening the door,” he ran a hand through his hair, fingers tugging at the strands. “Thought I was going to have to stand there forever.”

“I’m not a general anymore, Qrow, I retired.” James stared at Qrow and at the way he was swaying on his feet. Not drunk – James couldn’t smell any alcohol on Qrow, but there was something…

“Sure, Jimmy, sure.” Qrow pulled at his jacket and winced. “Listen…I, um…I need your help.” He beckoned James closer and then slowly peeled off this jacket, hissing under his breath the entire time. “Trust me, I know it looks bad, but it’s just a scratch.”

James stared at Qrow’s ripped shirt, horrified at the mass of bruises spreading across Qrow’s side and turning his pale skin mottle greens and blues and blacks. “What did you do?” he asked, awed in spite of himself. He brought his fingers up to rest against one of the bruises and Qrow sucked in a breath.

“You should see the other guy,” Qrow joked; James said nothing, merely tapped his foot at Qrow and waited.

“Spoilsport,” Qrow muttered, and then James was herding him into the kitchen so he could have a better look. Qrow slumped into one the chairs and James began to slowly and carefully peel back the blood soaked shirt.

“What happened?” James asked again, and Qrow sighed.

“Some idiot in a convertible cut in front of me without turning on his blinkers,” Qrow said, and reached up to rub at his shoulder. “I was able to keep the bike from floundering but…” he looked at his bloody arm, “I missed the guard rail; I was turning onto the exit ramp and ended up going off road and taking a dive down the hill.” He fingered his shirt. “There were a lot of thorn bushes. And rocks.” Qrow hissed again as his shirt stuck to a cut on his side.

“I’m going to need to wet that,” James told him, and Qrow nodded, slumping further in the chair. James grabbed a clean washcloth from one of the drawers and ran the water so it’d warm up. “What about the other guy? Did he stop?”

“Nope,” Qrow grimaced. “And I didn’t get a chance to catch his license plate or you can bet I’d be reporting him. And there wasn’t anybody else around who could help.”

James felt a chill run down his spine. “Qrow, how long were you out there?”

Qrow started to shrug and then stopped. “I dunno, a couple of minutes? I…might have lost consciousness for a little bit,” he said quickly. “But I’m fine now.” He glanced down at his bloody shirt. “Mostly fine.”

“You drove here after getting into an accident and losing consciousness?” James repeated incredulously. “Qrow, do you know how dangerous that was?”

“Probably a lot, but I got here fine, didn’t I?” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Besides, my phone got busted, which sucks because I just got it, and it’s not like there were a lot of places I could stop at.” He cracked an eye at James. “You just had to live out in the middle of nowhere.”

“West Woods is hardly in the middle of nowhere.”

“You’re five minutes away from cornfields; it takes you 25 minutes to get to the city. You’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“City boy,” James teased. He wrung out the washcloth enough so that it wasn’t dripping water and came back to Qrow so he could dampen the shirt. “Why’d you come here anyways? Why not the hospital?”

“Umm,” Qrow said, and looked away.

James narrowed his eyes. “Qrow…you do have healthcare, right?”

Qrow glanced at him and then stared at a spot on the ceiling. “Kind of?”

“ _Qrow_.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” James just gave him a look. “Honest! I signed up for healthcare during open season, but it never saved right. And I didn’t find out till last month, when I called them to see why my insurance card never came through.”

“Did they fix it?” James asked, and started peeling the damp shirt away.

Qrow grunted and wrapped a hand around the chair seat. “They’re looking into it. So until then, I’m up shit creek.”

James shook his head. “So that’s why you came here?”

“Yup,” Qrow popped the ‘p’ and held onto the chair tighter. “Figured you knew something about stitching people up, considering you were in the military and all.”

James rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t a medic, Qrow. I worked with the Robotic Technology Division. I worked on robots, not people.”

“But the premise is the same, right?” Qrow peered sideways at James. “You can’t honestly tell me you don’t know how to stitch someone up.”

James frowned at the shirt. “I’m going to have to cut it off,” he muttered, and then sighed. “If your cuts were just a fraction deeper - or wider - then no, I couldn’t help. Most of these are scratches though, and I have some liquid band-aid we can use. This one,” he gestured at the long cut that ran across Qrow’s side to wrap up and around his chest. “It’s long but shallow, and easy enough to stitch up.” He stood up and passed Qrow the washcloth. “I don’t have any painkillers stronger than Tylenol, though.”

“I can always have a couple shots of that brandy over there,” Qrow nodded at the bottle resting in the glass cabinet above one of the counters.

James flicked Qrow’s ear. “Or, you can take two Tylenol with orange juice and get some rest.” He studied Qrow’s bruises. “You’re going to be feeling that a lot more in the next few hours.”

“Great,” Qrow muttered. “I’m in pain and you won’t even let me have a drink.”

James ignored him and went to pull the orange juice out of the fridge. “You’ll thank me when you don’t have a hangover on top of those bruises.” He poured Qrow a glass and then sat it and the carton in front of him while he went in search of his first aid box. Qrow stared at the glass of orange juice, back to the brandy, and then back to the orange juice. He scowled and drank the juice.

“You should have some more,” James said, and then he thumped a large first-aid case down on the counter. He poured Qrow another glass of orange juice and flipped the kit open to pull out a pack of disposable gloves, a suture kit, and paramedic scissors.

“I thought you said you weren’t a medic,” Qrow said accusingly. He opened the packet of Tylenol James sat on the counter and swallowed them down with another swallow of orange juice.

“I wasn’t,” James replied absently. He washed his hands and then pulled on a pair of gloves. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be prepared.” He lifted the scissors and gestured at Qrow. “Let’s get that shirt off.”

* * *

James gently placed a blanket on Qrow, tucking the edges in carefully so it wouldn’t fall off him. Qrow didn’t move; he had fallen asleep after James moved him to the couch – it was much more comfortable than the kitchen chairs. James dimmed the lights and then went back to the kitchen and started pulling out the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. Penny wouldn’t be home for at least another thirty minutes, and James had the feeling that they could all use some chocolate.

On the couch, Qrow opened his eyes and smiled sleepily at James’ back. He tugged the blanket up to his chin, snuggled deeper into the couch, and fell back asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find me on tumblr here](http://roguewolfprints.tumblr.com)
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> Comments are love.


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